Why is the Genesis 2 Account Different?
Actually, Genesis 2 is not a different account of creation. It is a more detailed account of Day 6 of creation. Chapter 1 is an overview of the whole of creation; chapter 2 gives details surrounding the creation of the G arden of Eden, the first man, and his activities on Day 6.
In Matthew 19:3–6 Jesus Christ quotes from both Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 2:24 when referring to the same man and woman in teaching the doctrine of marriage. Clearly, Jesus saw them as complementary accounts, not contradictory ones.
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I am a strong believer in the authority and inspiration of the word of God. But I do wonder about Genesis and how it refers to no bush or vegetation were around when God decided to make Adam. This is confusing considering land and vegetation was made on day 3 and man on day 6.
Does the hebrew transfer it differently? Is there possiblity that since Moses was the writer it was not a first hand account and things were not perfectly clear, similar to Revelations?
Again, the fact that we do not know I believe only gives more power to God and is a reminder we are finite and know very little.
"the fact that we do not know I believe only gives more power to God"
YES! Our ignorance proves that there is a GOD! or maybe not.
We have come pretty far in the last thousand years - come back in ten thousand years and see if we have learned a little bit more.
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob belonged to different tribes and were not related, but the stories grew together into a collection and the persons were tied together as members of the same family. Isaac became son of Abraham, with Esau and Jacob becoming Isaac’s sons. And Jacob became equipped with twelve sons, so the twelve tribes should be equal.
Into this storytelling old adventure stories also were incorporated, and they were told as being as credible as the heroic epics. The motif in the story about Joseph and the wife of Potiphar for instance is copied from the Egyptian fairytale “The two Brothers”.
Of old an enmity existed between the semi-nomadic sheepherders and the Bedouins. In the production of myths, the sheepherders therefore made a story about how the Bedouins were descendants of a farmer that had fled because of murdering his brother. We recognize the story about Cain and Abel. They then equipped Adam and Eve with a third son, Set, who was made god-fearing and straight enough to be the one they themselves descended from.
In Canaan, drought was the enemy; high summer was the death of nature. But with autumn the rains came, and nature awakened to life again. The creation myth of the Canaanites therefore speaks of the dry, arid land that their God bless with rain and wells breaking forth.
Thus life was created on Earth. Contrary to that, in Babylon floods were the dangerous problem.Their creation myth, that also became known by the Israelites and incorporated into their folklore, therefore tells that it began with waters all over, then with land rising out of the water. The two creation myths are placed side by side in the bible and they are both equally true and believable.
Most likely, people in those times believed those stories as more than just stories. For them, it was real history that earth and heavens, man and animals suddenly were created. They were aware of the existence of other peoples with other gods, but they were not part of their own history and how they might have been created was of no concern to them. So therefore, there was no problem for Cain to find a wife.
Most of the myths in Genesis are older than the immigration of the Israelites. They had been part of the tribal traditions for a long time. Their concept of God also was quite different. The patriarchs knew gods like El-sjaddai and Elohim, and neither Abram, Isaac or Jacob knew anything about Moses’ new creation, Yahweh. According to 2. Mos. 3, Moses asked the new god what he should be called, and the god replied: “I am who I am.” The story leaves no doubt that it is a new, hitherto unknown god that is being introduced, but history has made him identical with the god of the patriarch’s. While they had been more like family- or tribal gods, this new god was made the god of the Israeli nation, and theirs only. And in later history telling he became the god of the ancient myths and fairytales.